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Why Send a Message in a Bottle?

Why do people send messages in bottles?

We have been doing it for hundreds of years, and messages in bottles continue to intrigue us. They loom large in popular culture, too. There’s the Police song, “Message in a Bottle”; the Nicholas Sparks book, “Message in a Bottle,” and the movie starring Robin Wright and Kevin Costner. There are businesses that make message-in-a-bottle wedding invitations–you can even send a message in a bottle “virtually” to a random recipient online!

So, what do we hope to get out of sending these messages? For some, like Ake and Paolina Wiking, the answer is love. Many, like John E. Freeland, send a message in a bottle because they want a penpal. Some hope their bottles will be found, like activists who use MIBs to spread awareness of issues like ocean litter. Others hope their messages in bottles will never be found, and use them as a sort of “confessional,” entrusting apologies and farewells to the ocean. Some will send a message in a bottle to say goodbye to loved ones, or even to send them on a final journey, like these folks.

In stark contrast, some send them simply as a joke. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, message in a bottle hoaxes were enormously popular, like this one and this one. Messages in bottles were also sent in the early years of ocean science to study currents. Some motives remain a mystery forever–like when a message in a bottle is found after the sender has passed away.

One thing’s certain: these bottled notes go on some wild adventures in the high seas, and lead to friendships, romance, and reunions that never could have happened any other way.

So, Why Send a Message in a Bottle?

“Over the six years since he found the bottle, Clint asked me more than once if I knew why my Dad had started this hobby with the bottles. I really didn’t know, but as I turned up more information about it, I think it had to do with his life growing up ina small town in Iowa in the pre-Depression days of the 1920’s and 1930’s. He was always interested in people from far-away places, but people didn’t often travel that far away from their homes in those days. When he did start to travel later in life, it was a friendship kind of thing that developed as he was able to see the world and enjoy meeting and talking to people and learning about their lives, and he enjoyed telling them about his life, as well.”

“What compelled us to toss the bottle into the ocean?” Carol said, “It was a spontaneous gesture really. But I suppose romance—of the sea and of sharing our love. Seemed like a way to honor our happiness and offer our wish that others might experience it as well. Ed and I walked into the surf together, hand in hand, and tossed the bottle. Honestly, I expected it to surface 20 yards down the shore. What an adventure it ended up taking.”

“On the cruise to the Caribbean I joined in with an art tutor who was both interesting and very attractive. So I drew a few pieces as memories of what I had experienced in the past in the Caribbean and other places like Madeira. Hence the “street sledging” guys! I guess we must have been about a days’ sail out of Madeira when I finished with the art group and was wondering what to do with the sketches. Having just drunk the last of the bottle of water, I suddenly, without any real reason, decided to send them over the side.”

“When we sent the message it was really to see how far it would travel. When we threw it over board we said that someone we don’t even know is going to come into our lives just by a message in a bottle. As time goes by you seem to forget about it till you hear that knock on you door—then all them memories come flooding back into your head on the day it went over board…Life is so short. If you want to do something in life, don’t let it pass. Just get up and enjoy your life.”

One of the most surprising reasons people send message in bottles is to advertise a product. Seems ridiculous, right? But…what if your product already comes in a bottle? What if you want to advertise the “foreign export” version of that product, to spread your message to distant shores? It starts to make a bit more sense. Enter advertising genius and Managing Director of Guinness Exports Ltd, A.W. Fawcett. It was his idea to drop 200,000 messages in bottles advertising Guinness into the ocean throughout the 1950s. The first “drop” of 50,000 bottles happened in 1954. These used regular old bottles and weren’t flashy. But by 1959, they had stepped up the game, using specially embossed bottles and fancy printed material inside (like the Neptune Scroll pictured here).

According to Guinness historian David Hughes, “The whole operation was carefully worked out so that the ocean currents would wash the bottle sup on the shores of those countries they were aiming at”; in other words: Guinness hoped thebottles would spread their advertising to particular countries, and dropped them in strategic locations.

A letter from Fawcett to his employees at the time survives, in which he describes the process of making and sealing these bottles in painstaking detail: how to put a cork in the bottle, then a layer of sealant, then the cap, then tape, then a lead-based wrapper. Now that is how you send a message in a bottle!

He notes, “The longer time goes on without hearing from anyone, really the better the ultimate publicity value.” He goes on to speculate that these bottles will be so well sealed, they could live “at least 500 years” at sea. That may seem crazy, but folks are still finding them, almost 60 years after they were dropped. Who know how long they will continue turning up? Read more about the Guinness messages in bottles by clicking here.

A Message In A Bottle! Always have been intrigued by them . Once found a dollar bill in a bottle along the Daytona Beach Shore years ago. Was just a kid then. Was absolutely amazed.Next mont a couple of friends of mine and me are going to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean for a short vacation. We are old seniors now with a lot of life lessons under our belts. What a great way to share life’s wisdom to hopefully some youngster somewhere. Will diffinately make this a project each of us seniors can contribute to others some where beyond the Atlantic. With a bit of magic these Messages in A Bottle will find their way to just the right person at just the right time. What a fun idea. May the force be with our bottles.

Hi KJ,I must have missed this when you posted it! Anyway, this website is a good place to read found messages–I mainly post my own here (i.e., ones that I find), plus some from other folks. But I frequently post about other peoples’ messages in bottles on my facebook page, which you can follow here if you want to see stories like that/keep an eye out for your own messages: http://www.facebook.com/messageinabottlehunter

I found a chain mail bottle with three notes inside. See Cape Cod Times capecast. I had to break the bottle to get the notes and I will begetting a new bottle to ad my note and send it again. Love. I felt bad about breaking it but it is the message that counts.

Hi Kimberly! I actually saw your story and thought it was very cool! Nice to have you drop by here 🙂 Hope you’ll let me know when you hear back from the next recipient. Three messages in one bottle… very cool.

what a fanrstic hobby, bottles & messages have always enthralled me, so much , that i was on the way to Canada from Wales, on the Empress of Canada, leaving Liverpool UK on July/Aug of 1966, I & family put the bottle in mid Atlantic thought we might of heard something but no, I didn’t have an address to give but put a relative’s ,already settled in BC Canada. I often think of that message in a bottle, but guess it was broken in the heavy tides or whatever!! You have such exciting adventures , reading messages & trying to find the senders… & you seem to do a wonderful service.. Yours sincerely, Pam Watts BC Canada

Sometimes, it’s just fun to let the fates decide. In my case, i wanted to see if what im going to send will end up where i want it to end up. If it does, then that’s something that will be hard to ignore, right? In a way, in not knowing, is the greatest adventure yet!